A Royal Christmas Cruise (Stonewall Investigations Miami 2.50)

In his penthouse suite. Jesus. Who the hell did I end up kissing? What if he was some kind of celebrity I didn’t recognize? Those girls at the start of the cruise seemed to have thought he was someone… maybe he was?

Or maybe I was just overthinking things. He was just a super-hot guy with a ton of money. Not everyone who was rich had to be famous. Who knew, maybe he had won this trip in some holiday contest? There were a hundred different possibilities, and I wasn’t about to keep myself up trying to ponder them all.

I continued to scroll, a couple of steamy GIFs popping up on my timeline. It was clearly the late-night social media crowd. I paused on one particularly hot GIF, feeling a familiar heat rise inside me. It was of two men kissing, one of them in gray sweats and another in black gym shorts. I slipped a hand under the heavy covers and adjusted my growing boner.

Before I clicked on the account, deciding that I had plenty of steam to blow off, I accidentally scrolled down on the page, losing the sexy GIF.

Determined, I flicked my thumb, the different tweets blurring together. The scrolling stopped on a picture, except it wasn’t the photo I was looking for. I was about to keep scrolling but stopped. Something about the photo looked incredibly familiar.

I focused, realizing I knew exactly where the photo was taken and when.

Mainly because I was in the center of the frame, Nick holding me, his back turned to the camera, the deck of the cruise ship having been filled as we were leaving port. It had been the briefest of moments. I had fallen into Nick’s arms, and he had caught me. The entire thing happened in a matter of seconds, and yet, in this photo, it made it seem like I was being held as we took off on our damn honeymoon, Nick’s arms wrapped around me tight.

“What the…”

Why was there a photo of me and Nick? And why did it have close to… holy goat cheese balls, why did it have ten thousand likes?

I read the caption next: Was the Prince of Spain spotted with Mystery Man on a Holiday Cruise?

Prince of… the Prince of… Prince.

What in the holy fuck. No, this had to be a mistake. He must have just resembled the guy. He probably had one of those faces, the ones that make you throw a second glance only to then realize he was just another hot guy in the crowd and not someone from a royal family.

“This is freaking crazy.”

I started to read the comments. Most of them were in Spanish, which I had a decent grasp on but still needed to tap on the “translate” button so I could make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

“That is our prince, I’d recognize his back anywhere.”

“No way. Prince Nicholas isn’t gay!”

“Prince Nick is an LGBTQ icon, wow.”

“The prince can’t be gay, NO.”

“Can he come cruise with me, ayyy.”

I felt nauseous and it wasn’t because of the ship’s motion. This couldn’t be real. They had to be mistaken. Either that or this was some elaborate prank. Jada had always been into pranks—maybe she’d decided to go all out for our reunion.

I switched out of the app and opened up my absolute best tool as a detective. One I couldn’t go a day without, even when I wasn’t on the clock:

Google.

There, I typed in “Prince of Spain.” I didn’t hit Search right away. My thumb hovered over the button. I allowed my thoughts to drift for a brief moment into fantasy land. What if… if he really was the prince of Spain? I had shared a kiss with a prince, and it had been one of—no, no, let’s be real here, it had been the best kiss of my entire damn twenty-five years of existence, and I’d put money down that it would remain as the best kiss for the duration of said existence.

I took a breath and pressed Search, sitting up on the bed, finding only articles at first and seeing a photo of the prince as a child.

But the name of that child… Nicholas Silva.

Nicholas.

Holy mother-princing shit.

More recent photos popped up, and any kind of doubt I had disappeared. There were shots of Nick leaving bars, restaurants, clubs. Always holding a girl’s hand, a stunning woman with dark black hair that fell down in a sheer curtain toward the small of her back. Then there were the articles talking about their recent break-up, and the shockwaves it caused when the news hit.

Nick was freaking royalty? And I was just photographed in his arms?

Oh wow, was this Christmas turning out to be packed full of surprises already.

9 Nicholas Silva

I woke up in great spirits. The sun streamed in through the windows that lined the wall next to the bed, breaking in through the corners of the blackout curtain that covered the balcony door. I half expected to hear a chorus of birds chirping before I remembered that we were miles out in the middle of the ocean, where I’d hear dolphins chirping before birds. I stretched underneath the covers, running my hands down my body, giving my morning wood a squeeze. I normally slept naked, and last night was no exception, although my constant boner for Shiro made it a little harder than usual.